DBMS > 4D vs. Lovefield vs. ObjectBox vs. SpatiaLite vs. TimescaleDB

System Properties Comparison 4D vs. Lovefield vs. ObjectBox vs. SpatiaLite vs. TimescaleDB

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Application development environment with integrated database management system

Embeddable relational database for web apps written in pure JavaScript

Lightweight, fast on-device database for IoT, Mobile and Embedded devices, persisting and synchronising objects and vectors

Spatial extension of SQLite

A time series DBMS optimized for fast ingest and complex queries, based on PostgreSQL

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Object oriented DBMS
Vector DBMS

Spatial DBMS

Time Series DBMS

Secondary database models

Time Series DBMS

Relational DBMS

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	2.37
Rank	#110	Overall
	#54	Relational DBMS

Score	0.22
Rank	#306	Overall
	#138	Relational DBMS

Score	1.08
Rank	#179	Overall
	#6	Object oriented DBMS
	#9	Vector DBMS

Score	1.56
Rank	#142	Overall
	#3	Spatial DBMS

Score	4.06
Rank	#73	Overall
	#5	Time Series DBMS

Website

www.4d.com

google.github.io/lovefield

github.com/objectbox
objectbox.io

www.gaia-gis.it/fossil/libspatialite/index

www.timescale.com

Technical documentation

developer.4d.com

github.com/google/lovefield/blob/master/docs/spec_index.md

docs.objectbox.io

www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/spatialite_topics.html

docs.timescale.com

Developer

4D, Inc

Google

ObjectBox Limited

Alessandro Furieri

Timescale

Initial release

1984

2014

2017

2008

2017

Current release

v20, April 2023

2.1.12, February 2017

4.0 (May 2024)

5.0.0, August 2020

2.15.0, May 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Bindings are released under Apache 2.0

Apache License 2.0

Open Source

MPL 1.1, GPL v2.0 or LGPL v2.1

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

JavaScript

C and C++

C++

Server operating systems

OS X
Windows

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

tested with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari

Android
Any POSIX system
Docker
iOS
Linux
macOS
QNX
Windows

server-less

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

yes, plus "flex" map-like types

yes

numerics, strings, booleans, arrays, JSON blobs, geospatial dimensions, currencies, binary data, other complex data types

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

close to SQL 92

SQL-like query language

via JavaScript builder pattern

yes

full PostgreSQL SQL syntax

APIs and other access methods

ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

by using 4D Mobile
SOAP webservices

Proprietary native API

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

Supported programming languages

4D proprietary IDE
PHP

JavaScript

C
C++
Dart (Flutter)
Go
Java
Kotlin
Python
Swift

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

user defined functions, PL/pgSQL, PL/Tcl, PL/Perl, PL/Python, PL/Java, PL/PHP, PL/R, PL/Ruby, PL/Scheme, PL/Unix shell

Triggers

yes

Using read-only observers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

none

yes, across time and space (hash partitioning) attributes

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication

none

Data sync between devices allowing occasional connected databases to work completely offline

none

Source-replica replication with hot standby and reads on replicas

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

yes, by using IndexedDB or the cloud service Firebase Realtime Database

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

using MemoryDB

yes

User concepts

Access control

Users and groups

yes

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

News

MongoDB Realm & Device Sync alternatives – ObjectBox
17 September 2024

Local AI – what it is and why we need it
11 September 2024

First on-device Vector Database (aka Semantic Index) for iOS
24 July 2024

Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) with vector databases: Expanding AI Capabilities
18 June 2024

The on-device Vector Database for Android and Java
29 May 2024

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and for displaying vendor-provided information such as key customers, competitive advantages and market metrics.

Related products and services

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More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

MySQL, PostgreSQL and Redis are the winners of the March ranking
2 March 2016, Paul Andlinger

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Spatial database management systems
6 April 2021, Matthias Gelbmann

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Recent citations in the news

General availability: Latest version of the TimeScaleDB extension on Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server
8 May 2024, Microsoft

Timescale Acquires PopSQL to Bring a Modern, Collaborative SQL GUI to PostgreSQL Developers
4 April 2024, PR Newswire

TimescaleDB Is a Vector Database Now, Too
25 September 2023, Datanami

PostgreSQL is Now Faster than Pinecone, 75% Cheaper, with New Open Source Extensions
11 June 2024, PR Newswire

Understanding Hyperfunctions in TimescaleDB
11 August 2021, CDOTrends

provided by Google News

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